Authors: Adrienne Barbeau
Tags: #Fiction, #Vampires, #General, #Fantasy, #Hollywood (Los Angeles; Calif.), #Mystery & Detective, #Contemporary, #Supernatural, #Motion picture producers and directors, #Occult fiction
“And you?”
“I don’t take human lovers very often, Peter. Especially not since I met Maral. Not because of my feelings for her, but because her presence eases my loneliness. It’s hard having a long-term relationship with a human. I fall in love with someone and then have to watch him grow old and frail while nothing changes with me. Hard on the loved one as well. Maral is still so young we haven’t had to deal with that, but if she continues to stay in my life, we will.”
“Can’t you turn her into something like you? That’s what they do in the movies. Jesus, I let you drink my blood—isn’t that supposed to make me a vampyre, too?” He looked down at his left wrist where just two weeks before I’d placed my lips to replenish my strength. There was nothing there, no scar, no wound, no sign of my fangs having been deeply embedded in his flesh.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. The consternation on his face made him look like a teenager. “It doesn’t work that way, Peter. That’s a myth perpetrated by literature and horror films. In the first place, I would never turn her without her permission. And second, the very act of creation can change the nature of the person. You saw what Rudolph Valentino became—so vicious you had to kill him to save us. He wasn’t like that before I turned him. Too often the vampyre I create is not the human I fell in love with. And Maral has her own set of neuroses. Her daddy did a real good job messing her up, and she’s got some problems where men are concerned. She’s invaluable when it comes to running the studio, but she can go off-kilter emotionally from time to time. Even if she wanted me to turn her, I’m not so sure I would.”
“All right. I get that. But what was that thing that happened when you were getting out of the car? That electricity. I thought vampyres were supposed to be cold-blooded. Heat was coming off of you like fire. If I hadn’t pulled my hand away, my skin would have fried. That’s the reason you didn’t shake hands with my family, isn’t it?”
“You noticed that, did you?”
“Not at first, because you had packages in your hands. But then when you managed to say hello to everyone and you hadn’t put them down, I started watching for it. You did the same thing when it came time to say good-bye.”
“Well, I had a different reason then. When I touch someone, if I let them in, I get images from that person’s life. Faint and jumbled usually; sometimes I can’t make sense of them at all, so they don’t do me any good. But other times, they’re strong and clear and I find them intrusive. The first time I shook your hand, I saw my special effects artist crucified against the wall, the same way you’d discovered her when you came to talk to me about the Cinema Slayer. I can block the images out, but it’s easier most times to avoid physical contact. My touching you, and burning you, was something else.”
“So you only burn the people you . . . aw, fuck. This is ridiculous. I’m talking about something I didn’t even believe existed up until two weeks ago, and now I’m talking about it like I know what I’m talking about! You know what, I’ve got to get out of here.”
“Peter—”
He was up and out of the chair. “No. Save the explanations for another time. If there is one. I loved the story about the movie stars, believe me. And I’d probably enjoy the toe story about the Armenian vampyre, too, but I can’t hear any more right now. It’s too much to take in. I had a great time today. I’m glad you came to the house, I’m glad we spent time together, but I don’t know how much of this I can handle. Just stay there. I know where the door is.”
And he walked out.
So I was right. Imagine his reaction if I’d told him about the were.
CHAPTER TEN
It was two in the morning and I was fighting the Thirst. Peter had left me aroused and frustrated. I wanted to tear into someone. Suck someone dry until I was released. I wished Maral were home.
I could have stopped Peter from leaving. I could have been next to him in less than a heartbeat, and if I had touched him . . . But I didn’t. That wouldn’t be playing fair, and besides, I didn’t want him on those terms. It had to come from him. I knew what I wanted to happen between us, but he hadn’t made up his mind. Not yet, anyway. And whatever happened, it had to be his decision.
I went into my office and sat down at my desk. It’s a beautiful amber-inlaid piece I smuggled out of the Russian court, right after the October Revolution. Well, it was early July, really, and I did my damnedest to get Nicholas to at least let me help the Empress and their children escape, along with his cook and valet and doctor. But he was a stubborn man for one so young. Never to grow older. I’ve never thought their martydom was worth it.
My computer screen was still open to the views from the security cameras. I studied each split screen for any sign my beastly intruder had returned. The geese were quiet; there was no movement on the screens. Just to be certain, I went out onto the balcony and smelled the air. It was scented with roses and alyssum. And goose shit. But nothing unexpected.
The phone rang in my bedroom. Only four people have my private line—Doug Fairbanks, Orson Welles, my attorney, and Maral. My business partner had it, but he was dead. I knew who was calling. I pulled back the duvet and lay down on the bed before I answered.
“Hello, sweetheart,” I said, “how’s the bayou?”
“I been callin’ you all night,
chère
. Why didn’t you pick up?” Subtle accusations colored Maral’s voice. I ignored them.
“You’ve only been in the swamps a day, Maral, and already you sound like you never left. I was out. Having Christmas Eve dinner with Peter King’s family, remember?”
“Until after midnight? I just didn’t think it’d be this late, is all.”
I ignored that, too. Maral can be a bitch sometimes, where the men in my life are concerned. She doesn’t trust men in general, and she really hates it if they’re paying attention to me. It’s one of the few things we’ve argued about over the years. I changed the subject. “Well, it’s even later there. Why are you up at four in the morning?”
“Maw-Maw got me worried about you, is all. She did a reading for me for my Christmas present. She said she figured I been livin’ with
les Américains
so long, I need to know what’s going on.”
Maral’s grandmother is in her eighties. She still lives by herself somewhere near Maral’s mother in Bayou Go Down. Never learned English. I met her once when we screened
Mojo Working
in New Orleans and Maral brought her family down to see it. We got by just fine with my French and her Cajun. She’s a pistol, that’s for sure. Raised eleven kids and buried two husbands and still going strong.
“So tell me what she saw.” Maw-Maw’s been throwing the tarot since she was a little girl. Maral believes she’s got the gift of second sight. I’m sure she does. Maral tells story after story of her grandmother knowing things long before they happened. Like the time some neighbor of theirs got struck by lightning. Maw-Maw was home alone, in bed with fever. With no phone or TV, she had no way of hearing the news, but when her twin sisters stopped by to check up on her, she told them that the neighbor had been sizzled.
Or the time last month when she’d told Maral’s brother there was a beast in the swamps, and two days later they found one of the Villarubbia boys spit out all over the levee. They still haven’t seen the gator, but she knew he was out there.
“What did Maw-Maw see that got you worried about me?” I asked. Maybe she’d seen the were attack. She wouldn’t know what to make of it, but she might know I was in danger.
“She saw Peter King. You shouldn’t be spending time with him, Ovsanna. There’s nothing good gonna come of it. He’s a cop and he already knows too much about you.”
“Oh, I see. You’re not worried about me, Maral. Peter’s no danger to me. And he’s no danger to you. If that’s what you’re worried about, you don’t need to be.” I wasn’t going to get into this on the phone. “Now how come your momma wanted you home so badly? What’s going on there?”
“She’s having trouble with Jamie. She thinks he’s doing drugs. I know he’s doing steroids, for sure. And smoking pot. I followed him down to the levee and watched him.”
“Wait a minute. On Christmas Eve? What was your brother doing down at the levee? Doesn’t he know that boy got attacked? Besides, wasn’t your whole family there?” Maral’s twin aunts, Tante Ruby and Tante Anne, live together on a houseboat in the bayou. They’ve never married. They wear matching cotton housedresses, sewn at home from the Butterick patterns they’ve had since the thirties. When they came to the screening in New Orleans, they wore hats to match. “I thought you were all going to midnight mass.” I would have loved to see their Christmas attire.
“For sure, everyone was there. All the cousins. And Uncle Erace brought his accordion and Tante Ida played the fiddle. And Jamie was there. But you know how he is in his brain, he’s slow. He’s like a little kid. And you should see Momma, she’s wasting away. I got scared just giving her a hug. And Jamie’s gotten so big, Momma can’t control him. He’s too big to whup. Well, after dinner, he lied to her and told her he was going out frogging. She asked him what kinda fou’ does he think she is—she knows damn well it ain’t frogging season—and she threatened to pass him a slap, but she couldn’t get him to stay. So I followed him down to the water and saw him giving money to some guy.”
“Did you know him?”
“No. He looked a lot older than Jamie and he wasn’t Cajun, that’s for sure. Sounded like backwoods Florida. He was wearing a wife-beater tee and camo pants—on Christmas Eve. And grungy jockey shorts. I know because his pants were hanging lower than his behind.”
She pronounced “behind” with the accent on the
be
.
“And was he selling Jamie drugs?”
“For true. He and Jamie were smoking dope, and the guy was getting ready to pump a needle into Jamie’s butt. He had coke nails—you know, an inch long on his pinkies, for snorting. When they heard me calling Jamie’s name, that
saleau
threw everything in a backpack and took off. He had to hold his pants up so he could run. Jamie said that was his podnuh, DeWayne, and he was like a doctor; he was giving Jamie shots to help him get bigger and grow his muscles. Jamie’s been using the money I send to buy the weed and the ’roids. Oh, I wanted to shake him. When I told him the shots ain’t good for him, they make him crazy and shrink his privates, and make him act mean to Momma, he started yelling at me to go play and that DeWayne was his podnuh and he wasn’t listening to me. He slammed the screen door in my face.”
“Oh, shit.” This wasn’t the first time Maral’s mom had needed help with her younger brother. He’d had problems from birth. Maral’s daddy had been knocking her momma around pretty good while she was pregnant, and right at the end he belted her and she fell and her water broke. The damn bastard was so shit-faced that he didn’t even help her get up. She crawled to the bedroom and gave birth on the wooden floor, splinters and all. Jamie came out with the cord around his neck, blue. The doctors said later if he’d been born in the clinic, he’d have been fine. Instead he’s a little slow. “Is there anything I can do to help? Would he listen to me if I talked to him?” Jamie loves my movies, and he’s always excited when we talk on the phone, but I didn’t think that would hold much water against some redneck juicer from the bayou.
Maral agreed. “No,
chère,
that won’t help. And I can’t call the police. By the time they got out here that
fils de putain
would be long gone, and they’d just give Jamie grief. No, I’m gonna go out on Monday and track the guy down. See if I can get him to leave Jamie alone. Maybe I can buy him off.”
“I don’t know about that, sweetheart. What’s to stop him from hooking Jamie up again as soon as you leave? Do you want to bring Jamie here?”
“He can’t leave my momma, Ovsanna, and she can’t be without him. I can take care of it.”
“Well, you just be careful. I don’t like the thought of you confronting some doper. Take one of your uncles with you, or a cousin or someone. God knows you got enough of them down there. And don’t take any chances. Even if he took off when he heard you coming, that doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous. If there’s anything I can do to help, you let me know.”
“You could talk to me . . . make me feel good. What are you wearing? Are you in bed?” I could tell from the change in her voice what she wanted from me.
“Yes, I’m in bed. And you know what I’m wearing—nothing. Just like I always wear when I go to bed. Remember?” I shut off the light and lay back on the pillows with the phone to my ear. I knew what Maral was doing with her hands.
I might as well talk to her. It wouldn’t satisfy my Thirst, but it would take my mind off Peter, that’s for sure.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I spent part of Christmas Day in the office and the other part at home, alone. Reveling in having the place all to myself. No staff, no Maral, no werewolves.
But no Peter, either. Not that I expected him to show up, but I found myself looking at the clock occasionally, realizing the phone hadn’t rung.
Maral called again in the late afternoon to wish me Merry Christmas. She said Jamie loved the movies I’d sent him. He’d calmed down, and no one mentioned his podnuh. She’d tried to get him to do a reading with Maw-Maw, hoping the dealer would show up in the cards and Maw-Maw could frighten Jamie away from him, but Jamie wouldn’t sit for it. He just wanted to play the PSP Maral had given him.
Momma had told her a little more about the guy. He lived in a broken-down RV, fished with stolen hoop nets, and ran some craw-fish traps, but mostly he hung around the swamps, messing with the schoolkids. He’d been hanging around Jamie since last summer. Maral was going looking for him the next day.
I warned her again to be careful and told her how much I loved the gifts she’d given me, especially the diamond-and-black-pearl cocktail ring. I’d wear it on New Year’s Eve. My gift to her was a trip to Costa Rica, as soon as I wrapped up the merger I was working on for Anticipation. I was days away from finalizing a partnership with a consortium of Japanese investors, and when the deal was completed, Maral and I were both going to need a vacation.
Monday morning I called my attorney, Ernst Solgar, a bloodsucker in every sense of the word. He’s vampyre, Clan Obour, with his tiny feet and hidden
kirpan
. Although he’s almost five hundred years older than I am, he acknowledges my position as the chatelaine of this city. In the
Liber Mortis,
the vampyre bible, ownership of a city is clearly defined as the first to “inhabit, occupy or possess a township of greater than nine hundred and ninety-nine souls.” That I did, and every vampyre in town pays fealty to me.
Solgar never charges me for his services.
His secretary put me through as soon as she heard my voice. She’s a fan. Maral always makes sure she’s on the list for screening invites.
“
Eench bes ek,
Chatelaine?” Ernst asked in formal Armenian. It took me a moment to understand him; his accent is atrocious. The Obour are carrion eaters, they don’t have fangs. Hence the need to carry a
kirpan
—in his case, a jewel-encrusted dagger. He’s got to be able to cut his meat where he finds it. Solgar has a suckerlike opening on the tip of his tongue, and before his rhinoplasty he had only one nostril. Makes it hard to speak the language of our youth.
“I’m not so fine, Obour,” I responded, also in Armenian. It’s an easy way to ensure our privacy, unless I’m calling from Macy’s in Fashion Square, which is the mecca for Armenian salesclerks. Then I use German. “I had a visitor Saturday night—a were—and I doubt it was a social call.”
“And the body? You need me to dispose of it?” Ernst never questions my capabilities. There was no doubt in his mind I’d be the victor in any dispute.
“I didn’t kill it. He was powerful, Ernst. Incredibly powerful. A wolf, and an ancient one at that. Without a pack. He attacked me alone, in my backyard, and I want to know why. Is this business?”
“I’ve heard of nothing, Chatelaine. Nothing.” He cleared his throat. I hate it when he clears his throat; it sounds like the vacuum tube they use in a dentist’s office. No, I don’t have dental work done, but I’ve heard the sound. There’s an oral surgeon in the building next door to my office, and I can hear him through the walls. I swear last week he gave someone nitrous oxide and went down on her in the chair. It sounded like Tiny Tim coming.
“Ovsanna, everyone is shut down for the holidays; there is no one on the phones. You’re probably the only executive who is even in her office. And what would it be about? The Japanese deal? There are only four people in town who know what we’ve structured, and one of them is dead. You and I and Maral certainly aren’t talking. I doubt the Japanese are. I can think of no one who benefits from harming you, Chatelaine.”
“Will you make some inquiries, please, Ernst. Discreetly. The were’s intent wasn’t to harm me. He wanted my life.”
I spent the rest of Monday in the office, playing host to the three Japanese businessmen who had the power (that is, money) to catapult my burgeoning film studio into the big leagues. I own the lot, which means income from renting to other production companies, and I’ve been operating in the black for years, quite successful with my own low-budget horror films and made-for-TV movies, but these fellows had approached me eighteen months ago with a truly seductive offer. They wanted 25 percent of my 80 percent of Anticipation so they could develop straight-to-computer, direct-to-cell-phone-and-PDA, low-bandwidth, high-def movies. I wanted the hundred million they had to offer in cash and technological investments so I could continue to maintain creative control and avoid getting swallowed by one of the majors.
By the end of Monday, we all had what we wanted. My business affairs people went back to their office to put the finishing touches on the paperwork, and our PR department issued a press release about the merger. I went home to enjoy the solitude with Maral out of town. I checked the security cameras and made sure the alarm was on. The geese were quiet. Then I took a hot bath, lit a fire in the fireplace in my bedroom, and cuddled up in my huge, overstuffed chair to read the latest Doc Ford novel. I love Randy Wayne White’s character as much as I love Lee Child’s Jack Reacher. It dawned on me that that’s probably why I was attracted to Peter. He’s got some of their same qualities. Maybe not as iconoclastic, but definitely as macho.
I thought about Peter, a lot. I hadn’t heard from him. Maybe it was too soon. Or maybe that meant he’d made his decision. Maybe not hearing from him was the message he wanted to send.
I would hate that, but I’d understand.
Tuesday afternoon, he called. Just listening to his voice brought on the Thirst, which pissed me off. I’m too old to be acting like a teenager. About four hundred years too old.
“How are you?” I asked. That seemed safe enough after the way we’d said good night. I was seated at my desk, staring out the window at a hooker soliciting a guy in a Bentley.
“Well, I don’t have any burn marks, if that’s what you mean.”
“I’m sorry, Peter. What happened when I touched you was an accident. I never meant to hurt you. I just wasn’t concentrating.” The Bentley owner must have liked what he heard; he opened the car door and the girl got in.
“On what? What do you have to concentrate on to keep from sending sparks out your body?” He sounded as if he were interrogating a suspect that he didn’t believe.
“On not letting my attraction to you get out of hand.” I took a deep breath. Might as well get it all out in the open. “That’s what happens when I get aroused. I have to concentrate to control myself—to keep my vampyre self in check.”
There was silence for a moment. I heard Peter take a breath and hold it before he spoke. “So I guess it’s safe to say there’s something going on here . . . right? Even with Maral in the picture? And it’s not just coming from me?”
“No, it’s not.” I heard him exhale. I continued, “But what has to come from you is a decision about what happens next. I want you. You’re the first man I’ve wanted in years. But I don’t know what there is in this for you. I’m a vampyre, Peter. I’m not very good relationship material. My needs aren’t like yours. And I’m not above taking advantage of you to have them met.” The Bentley drove away, the girl’s head already below the dash. Talk about taking advantage.
He was silent for so long, I thought the call had dropped.
“Peter?” I asked.
He was still on the line. “I’ll tell you what,” he said, and his voice had lightened considerably, “let me pick you up around seven or so. I saw the announcement about the merger in today’s
Variety,
and I think we should go out and celebrate.”
It was my turn to be silent. Except for the blood pounding through my heart, which sounded to me like a kettledrum in an echo chamber.
“Are you sure?” I finally asked.
“Yes. I haven’t been taken advantage of in a long time. I’d like to see what it feels like.”